The New SAT Score Policy: Tiny Loophole, Big Shock? (Newsweek article)

Parent Cafe
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<p>question for historians…was score choice available for SAT Reasoning test? (I know it was available for the Subject Tests.)</p>

<p>Michelle: in answer to your query, I’m guessing that CB’s customers wanted to get rid of Score Choice, and that the leader of the customer list was the Big Kahuna, Univ of California (which veiws everything through a discrimination lense). But more importantly, since relatively few colleges require subject tests, California is the massive market for CB, particularly for ST’s.</p>

<p>From a 2002 UC press report:</p>

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<p>To the best of my recollection, score choice applied to both SAT reasoning and “achievement” tests back in my day, but I’m not 100% sure.</p>

<p>And yes, it’s sad that BUSINESS rather than education drives admissions. A sad commentary indeed.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the historical information, bluebayou.</p>

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<p>ClassicGeek,</p>

<p>Thanks for posting. Your insider’s view is fascinating - and so are your books!</p>

<p>When you were evaluating students with a significant improvement between two sittings (i.e. 1850-2200), would the original low score influence your decision? Did you have greater “respect” for the high score if it was the result of a single testing date?</p>

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<p>I can’t stop laughing at that.</p>

<p>Yes - Only wealthy students are able to take the SATs. Since it costs $1,000 a pop - They take it every Saturday. Since they are super rich and live in a super exclusive community, they have Super Guidance Counselors who are SO smart, they know how to look at the Laundry List of Scores and pick out the best in each section and create the Super Score.</p>

<p>Ugh. See what money does. It destroys this damn planet.</p>

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<p>I’m wondering what parents frequenting this Parents Forum are setting as strategies for their children’s test-taking to meet the admission realities of 2008 and beyond. </p>

<p>Is It Shameful to Test More Than Once? </p>

<p>The College Board publishes from time to time figures </p>

<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Avg_Scores_of_Repeat_Test_Takers.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board; </p>

<p>showing that a majority of high school juniors and seniors who take the SAT at all take it more than once. The Common Application </p>

<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/downloadforms/CombinedFirstYearForms2009.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/downloadforms/CombinedFirstYearForms2009.pdf&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>used by hundreds of colleges, </p>

<p><a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Members.aspx[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Members.aspx&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>includes spaces for students to easily self-report two sets of ACT scores, three sets of SAT Reasoning Test scores, and six SAT Subject Test scores, and as of this year also has space for nine AP or IB test scores. (Presumably a student who had more scores than fit into those spaces could self-report scores on an attachment to the Common Application.) Various other college applications also allow space for self-reporting more than one set of scores. </p>

<p>Colleges are aware that young people learn. They are also aware that young people occasionally have one bad day among many good days. They don’t seem as acutely embarrassed about young people retaking tests as some of those young people’s parents are. </p>

<p>Is It Misleading to Pretend to Have Tested Only Once or Twice? </p>

<p>In a residential college community, honesty surely is an important value. If a student takes offense at College Board for not forcing all colleges (as it cannot) to see just one set of test scores per student, should the colleges take offense at students who desire to pretend that they have taken the test no more than once or twice? Who is misleading whom? </p>

<p>How impressive is a sole test score, at whatever level of scoring, when the college knows some applicants submit all test scores and others attempt not to? Why (see above) would it be shameful to test more than once, and say that one has tested more than once? Wouldn’t it be honorable to say, here’s how often I tested, and here’s what I learned in the process? </p>

<p>What Do You Plan to Do? </p>

<p>What’s your plan for your child making a good impression on admission officers? How much does testing matter in that plan?</p>

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<p>This kinda relates to score choice (but about the ACT specifically)
If each ACT score is sent seperately, how will colleges know how many times you have taken the ACT? If you only send one, will they have no way of distinguishing how many times the student has taken the test?</p>

<p>And for the SAT- If score choice is eliminated at those selected schools, does that mean every SAT subject score will show up too?</p>

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<p>double post</p>

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<p>I knew this would happen. I think this is somewhat fair. I wrote an article explaining how unfair it was to certain students who couldn’t afford to take the SAT numerous times to improve their scores for my school paper. Kudos to the schools that are doing this. Collegeboard is simply trying to make a profit and disguising it by saying that they want the SATs to be “stress free.” I think this will be an interesting story to follow…</p>

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<p>Since I am definitely older than ClassicsGeek and have been involved in college advising for over 20 years, I can shed some light on score choice. Students never had the option of score choice for the SAT reasoning test, only for the subject tests. When score choice was initiated for the subject tests, students could send any subject test score, no strings. Then the CB decided that some students were gaming the system by signing up to take two subject test on one day and spending basically 90% of the two hours on one test and canceling the score of the second test. So…the CB ruled that if you canceled one score from a single sitting, you had to cancel all scores from that sitting. That policy lasted until CB decided that score choice favored affluent students who could take multiple tests. So, ever concerned about the welfare of students, they eliminated score choice. Everything went along smoothly for CB until the ACT started to lure students away from the SAT. Why, students asked, take the SAT and two subject tests - all without score choice, when we can take the ACT - with score choice - in place of them? (Yes, I know that a few schools require ACT plus two subject tests). Once it became apparent that the ACT was accepted by all schools, students flocked to it. And, suddenly, the CB decided that score choice was fair and just for all students! Go figure!</p>

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<p>You care correct, CB does not control the colleges, but does have fiduciary responsibility for the test data. Under FERPA, CB can only release scores at the direction of the applicant. </p>

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<p>What pretense? </p>

<p>1) There is nothing in the Common App instructions that requests students to report ALL scores – SAT taken in 7th grade for CTY or TIP, why? </p>

<p>2) Even tho there are plenty of boxes available, there is nothing in the Univ of Calif common app that requires ALL scores be reported: the operative words in the instruction are report “a” SAT/ACT test and “two” subject tests. It clearly does not state ALL. (The UC has a gazilion staff members, so they have parsed and word-smithed this application forever.)</p>

<p>3) The ACT has been around almost forever, and with it score choice. Even after 50+ years, less than a handful of colleges ask for all scores, and that’s only recently (I think). If Yale (and Stanford?) specifically ask for all scores, they should be submitted. But, if college xx does not ask for all scores, when they clearly could, they obviously don’t care.</p>

<p>There is no pretense. IMO, just bcos there are a bunch of empty boxes on the applications doesn’t mean all of them need to be completed – no different than leaving an Activity box blank or leaving the Additional Info box blank; if colleges want the info they should so ask on their supplement.</p>

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<p>Thanks factchecker - I’m not that young but I’m always happy that someone thinks so - actually I turn 42 in January. To answer the question a few posts back, yes, sometimes when reading files we were influenced by early lower scores. For example, if a student from a wealthy area took the SAT 5 times and all the scores were in the mid 600’s except the LAST one which was say low 700’s, it’s the low 700 that looks odd – plus, you’d figure tosn of $ for test prep. EVen if you didn’t think that on PURPOSE, it’s natural to think like that when plowing through 30 files a day.</p>

<p>As for only the wealthy taking advantage of score choice, that’s crazy - even if you took the SAT a “crazy” number of times like 5, that’s all of $225, the price of an IPod - you don’t have to be super wealthy for that, even in this economy. Plenty of hard working middle class and immigrant students would KILL to get into a top college where their education could be close to free, so even if they spent, gasp, $300, it could result in $200K in scholarship money and an Ivy league degree. Now that’s an investment return we can all root for.</p>

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<p>In graduate school admissions at a top school I used to teach at, we would severely discount someone who took the test (in this case GMAT or GRE) more than once: usually taking the average, not the top score (and for some factions, actually discounting a later top score).</p>

<p>I find it hard to believe that would not also be true for the SAT at some schools as well and never understood why no one on CC thought this would ever be an issue. </p>

<p>I guess my main point is this isn’t at all surprising that schools would want all the information, not just a subset of it.</p>

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<p>The main difference being that almost all undergraduate admissions specifically ‘promise’ the following on their websites:</p>

<p>“If standardized testing is repeated, the Admissions Committee only considers your highest scores.”</p>

<p>I presume your graduate school did not promise to just consider the highest GRE/GMAT scores. They can’t say that and then do what you described:</p>

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That would be downright dishonest and the school would be exposed as such.</p>

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<p>^ Agreed, no such promise in writing or otherwise (not that anyone I recall ever asked). I do believe that if colleges make such statements, they’d stick by them. Do most?</p>

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<p>I think people should stop whining about it. The way the system is now works great and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Some people have more money than others and can afford to take the test more times and get high dollar tutors. Just like some people can afford to apply to 10+ colleges, and hire professional essay services, and send thier kids to private prep schools. Thats the way the world works…</p>

<p>Just my opinion, I happen to like the current system and I think it’s just as fair as other aspects of college admissions.</p>

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<p>^ Spoken by someone who has benefited from the system just the way it is? If it personally worked for you, of course you like it and don’t think it needs improvement. </p>

<p>Frankly I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that we have this test you can take and retake and coach and retake and all that matters is the highest score you can get (as if it’s more akin to a videogame than a predictive measure of ability). It was never intended to be something that can be gamed but since it can be, up to a degree, it is. Just like ECs, and essays, and the rest of this nonsense.</p>

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<p>Which school? And, yes, what was the officially announced policy of that school at that time?</p>

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<p>starbright, I agree with you, however, schools do need something to compare grades between high schools. There are plenty of students with 4.0+ averages that can barely break 1000 on the m/v sections of the SAT. I think that is one reason to consider these standardized tests. I don’t think that there are any easy solutions. Oh, and if one comes from a family that can pay 50k per year without financial assistance, they also might benefit in private school admissions.</p>

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<p>starbright: I may concur as well, but the simple fact is that the SAT DOES do a good job of predicting Frosh grades; AND, does an even better job used in conjunction with gpa. Thus, testing does add value to adcoms, ridiculous or not.</p>